EPIC, Laser Classroom partner on lasers and optics research kit for students

Brussels, Belgium--The European Photonics Industry Consortium (EPIC) is partnering with Laser Classroom (Minneapolis, MN) to spread the word about an educational “Light, Lasers and Optics” outreach kit to students across Europe.

The kits, sponsored by companies, cost $253 (€195) and are then made available to teachers. National research organizations and photonics clusters work with EPIC to translate the kit into other languages and identify teachers motivated to use the kit in their classroom to excite children about science in general and photonics in particular. The teachers don’t need to pay for the kit—they receive it for free. What is expected from the teachers is to actively use the kit; once a year, they need to report back to EPIC on how many children used the kit, as well as send a picture and a testimonial developed by the classroom. Both the kit sponsors and schools using them are listed on the EPIC Web site and a long-term tracking of the impact of the kits is put in place.

“We want to spread those training kits by the hundreds all across schools in Europe, and we want to measure impact results both in the short and especially in the long term. There is only one objective and that is to excite children to take on a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) career direction so that companies in Europe have access to the talent they need to remain competitive,” says Carlos Lee, Director General at EPIC.

For more information, please visit www.laserclassroom.com/EPIC.

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